THE FAST AND THE FURIOS: TOKYO DRIFT

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Universal Pictures
Grade: D
Directed by: Justin Lin
Written by: Chris Morgan
Cast: Lucas Black, Bow Wow, Brandon Brendel, Zachery Ty Bryan
Screened at: AMC 84th St., NYC, 6/12/06
Opens: July 16, 2006

If you’ve even driven on New York’s Long Island Expressway, you’ll know what they mean when they say that this is the world’s longest parking lot. Traffic during peak hours is virtually at a standstill. If you come from an urban part of the U.S. you’ll probably know of other “expressways” just as frustrating. Isn’t it nice to know, though, that you can drive in downtown Tokyo at speeds so fast that the cops don’t even bother chasing you? If you don’t believe that, take in Justin Lin’s “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,” which features speed-demon Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) who, in one test run, pushes the speedometer up to 197 km/hour in a car that goes from zero to 60 in 4.5 seconds, and downtown though some of the racing may be, these cars have an almost clear path except for the obligatory knocking down of things in the way. That’s not in a Hyundai but rather a souped-up race car made principally for an extreme sport known as drifting. (Drift racing aficionados believe that going forward and backward is boring: they like to go sideways. For more information and a video go to http://www.driftracing.co.uk/video.htm.)

This is a sequel to John Singleton’s “2 Fast 2 Furious”, which was about a guy (Paul Walker) who goes undercover in Florida to help capture a drug lord who hires fast drivers. That in turn was a sequel to Rob Cohen’s “The Fast and the Furious,” which was about a fella, Paul Walker again, who tries to ingratiate himself with the kingpin of Southern Cal street racing (played by Vin Diesel, who has a cameo in this version). Apparently there’s some gold to be made in this sort of pic: there was even a “Fast and the Furious” in 1954 about a fugitive on the lam from a murder frameup who jockeys a sports car.

The one good thing about the current release is that it makes even a turkey like the animated “Cars” look good. Not only is everything about this movie unbelievable (and, of course predictable), but one has to wonder whether the Bayer aspirin people are underwriting the production. It’s not bad enough that the racing cars blast away on our eardrums. The music on the soundtrack is turned up so high during these peak moments that one wonders whether there’s a new, extreme sport whereby a car does not race against another car, but turns up the engine high enough to beat the music. Whoever sends out the higher decibels is the winner. If the judge goes deaf, that’s an extra five points.

The first thing evidence that this movie challenges your ability to suspend disbelief is that its star, Lucas Black, is a twenty-four-year old playing a kid who has not reached his eighteenth birthday. The second is that he takes a math class with a teacher who speaks only Japanese, though this provides him with the motivation to get into a sports car and do what he’s born to do. The third is that after racing a car near his Arizona digs and turning a vehicles upside down in a race, he’s brought in to the station house and given a choice: go to jail (it’s strike 3 for him as he’s done this before) or go to Tokyo where his father is stationed. Sounds like those Westerns: “This town is not big enough for the two of us,” or “Get outta town: fast.”

This is not the Japan of your retired teachers’ tour–look at the Ginza, then go to Kyoto, afternoons at leisure, etc., but the underground version with wall-to-wall babes in short, tight pants, addicted to cell phones, and ready to cheer the latest winner in the sport of drift racing. It’s also the Tokyo of D.K., young member of the Yakuza, or Japanese mafia, who answers only to the chief known as Uncle Kamata, to D.K.’s girlfriend, Neela (Nathalie Kelley). The good guys, who try to make nice with the mafia rather than root it out are Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) and his new pal, Twinkie (Bow Wow), a fellow who has stuff to sell to the Japanese, like iPods and cellphones. When Sean talks to D.K.s girfriend, he gets a warning punch or two on his face. When he takes her out, there’s war. There’s only way to fight this war: race! And when one race is finished, practice for the next one. And so on, ad infinitum.

The dialogue, banal as it is, serves as temporary relief from the incessant noise and meaningless of the sport. Lucas Black is not as good looking as Paul Walker, but his acting is equally mediocre. The film is close to idiotic.

Lots of parents are clueless about their kids’ fascination with video games. At least vid games improve the participants’ hand-eye coordination, for what that’s worth. In this movie, which looks like something that might appear for your new Playstation 3, you’re entirely passive. You head for the multiplex, sit back in your seat, and without pushing a button or moving your arms, you lazily let the projectionist do all the work. Not very appealing. If Shakespeare were alive today and took a job as film critic, he’d probably say that “Tokyo Drift” is “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Get my drift?

Rated PG-13. 105 minutes 2006 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online